Tabling At Travers Park

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September 2017 - We’ve been neglecting this Connecting.nyc site, putting virtually all our attention into the JacksonHeights.nyc Initiative. To catch you up a bit, here’s an email Tom sent last month updating our neighbors on progress with JacksonHeights.nyc.

The Editor

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Neighbors,

Next Sunday (August 13) the Jackson Heights Wiki will be hosting an outreach table at Travers Park during the Greenmarket. Tell us your thoughts about what we’ve done and what you’d like to see.

For those of you unfamiliar with The Jackson Heights Wiki, it is a Wikipedia specifically for the Jackson Heights neighborhood. It has over 200 pages which includes information about popular places in the neighborhood such as Restaurants and Parks and even Bathroom Facilities, as well as historical information about Jackson Heights.

But don’t let that number fool you, many of the pages in the Jackson Heights Wiki are incomplete (aka Stubs) and we need YOUR help and knowledge in completing those pages.

For comparison the Davis Wiki, which represents the town of Davis in California has over 16,000 pages, so the Jackson Heights Wiki has a long way to go and we need YOUR help in doing so.

Resource-wise, we’ve had a good summer.

  • We have a full-time summer intern from the city-funded Ladders For Leaders program, Syed Rahman.  A recent graduate from the High School of Technology in Long island City, Syed will be heading to Vanderbilt University on a full scholarship in a few weeks. He’s doing fantastic work.

  • And we received a $1,000 donation from a local veterans organization. (Hints on how to spend it are welcomed.)

While it’s helpful and fun adding to the information layer represented by the wiki, adding our next layer - decision-making and organizing - is the possible mold breaker.

Forty years ago I got an early peak at the potential of advanced connectivity – what we call today the Internet – and concluded that it would lead to a vast realignment in the operation of our governance systems. With their having been developed for a horse and buggy era, how could it not?

But to date, nothing much has changed in this foundational area. We hope to have something operating in late winter in the decision-making and organizing realm that sheds light on whether a neighborhood is a workable civic entity in our increasingly digital era.

Finally, putting on my panglossian hat and anticipating success, it’s time we get more formal with the governance of the Jackson Heights Initiative, with a first meeting on that topic to happen in September. Let me know if you’d like an invite and help steer the Initiative.

For now, SHARE WHAT YOU KNOW on the wiki.

Best,

Tom Lowenhaupt, Overseer Pro Tem

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About the Author:

Thomas thinks about technology and its impact on the quality of urban life.
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